Monday, November 28, 2011

Many times when you are testing CRM you need to access the web application from multiple test users. It is a bit annoying to have to log out of Windows and log in with another user to test something in the CRM application. Here is a trick on how you can access CRM (OnPremise, IFD, Online) from different users at the same time (in different IE windows):

While pressing down the “Shift” key, right-click on the Internet Explorer icon and select “Run as a different user”:

For OnPremise CRM: Enter the credentials of the user which you want to test CRM with. When you go to the CRM site, you should be automatically logged in as the user that you selected to run Internet Explorer as. You can open as many IE sessions with as many different users as you want!

For IFD / CRM Online: For each CRM user that you want to test you need to enter the credentials for any existing user (domain or local user). Then you can navigate to the CRM login site and enter the CRM credentials for the user you want to test. You can also open as many sessions with different users as you want.

For CRM for Outlook: Unfortunately you cannot execute multiple simultaneous Outlook windows using different users (at least not that I know about).

I have found this trick quite helpful and now I find myself logged in to CRM with multiple users at the same time so I can test things like security roles, email, etc.

About me

I used to be part of the CRM product team at Microsoft and I recently joined the Avanade Canada team as a consultant in the CRM Service Line, I developed a sort of delight in seeing how Dynamics CRM is evolving as a platform (xRM) and how its feature set has matured to be able to model and address plenty of business scenarios beyond Customer Relationship Management. I was recently given the Microsoft MVP award in Dynamics CRM and I am really excited to be part of the program and continue contributing to the CRM community.